The Key to Tender Steak? Baking Soda (2024)

FAQs

How long do you leave baking soda on steak to tenderize it? ›

Alternatively, a baking soda mixture generally takes between 15 and 20 minutes to tenderize the cuts of meat.

Once the beef arrives at Texas Roadhouse, meat cutters guide it through an in-house aging process. Although there are plenty of techniques for perfecting tender steak, aging the cuts in a controlled and salty environment helps break down tough muscle fibers, resulting in a richer, more succulent, final product.

Make a marinade with acidic components—such as citrus juice, buttermilk, yogurt, wine, vinegar or soda—to help break down tough connective tissue and muscle fibers.

Tenderizing The Steaks

The first method, and arguably the fastest, is using a fork. Just go over the entire steak, puncturing holes all over. Then flip and repeat. The idea is that opening lots of holes helps moisture escape during cooking.

Transfer the meat to a zip-top bag, stainless steel or glass bowl, or other non-reactive container, and refrigerate for 3 hours or up to overnight. Remove the meat from the container and briefly rinse the meat in plain water to strip off the baking soda solution (or as much of it as possible). Cook as desired.

The longer it sits, the more tender it will be. However, if you velvet for longer than an hour, the meat will become too soft—more akin to goo than a tender cut of protein. Rinse well before cooking: After velveting the meat, you have the option to rinse off the baking soda or slurry to prevent clumps in your stir-fry.

While there are a lot of different methods for tenderizing steak, after testing seven techniques, we found that the best is sprinkling the steak with meat tenderizing powder and letting it sit for about 15 minutes before cooking. The tenderizing powder yielded the most tender results with a small amount of prep.

Slice Against the Grain: When you're ready to serve, make sure you slice your steak against the grain. This shortens the muscle fibers and makes each bite more tender. Rest Your Steak: After cooking, let your steak rest for about 10 minutes.

By adding salt to your steak, you will help pull out moisture from the meat, enriching the flavor of your steak while tenderizing it in the process. Salt will act as a natural brine and can be added up to 24 hours before cooking, instilling deep, rich flavors and tenderness to any cut of beef.

How to make steak tender overnight? ›

Well, you can try using marinades. Marinade your meat for several hours (for me, 24 hours) using a combination for the marinade of acid (vinegar, lemon juice, or wine), oil, and herbs and spices of your choice.

Recipe blog One Good Thing notes that the vinegar in Worcestershire sauce tenderizes steak, its sugar and molasses bring both sweetness and sheen, and ingredients such as onion, garlic, tamarind, and anchovy pack a wallop of umami flavor.

You'll need 1 teaspoon baking soda per 12 ounces of steak. Let it soak: Add the steak to the bowl to submerge. Let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Rinse and pat dry: After soaking the steak, rinse well under running water.

Kaitlin Leung of The Woks of Life, a blog dedicated to Chinese cooking, shares that a standard velveting mixture could include egg white and cornstarch, plus a few tablespoons of water – to help coat the meat yes, but also to make the meat extra tender and juicy.

While there are a lot of different methods for tenderizing steak, after testing seven techniques, we found that the best is sprinkling the steak with meat tenderizing powder and letting it sit for about 15 minutes before cooking. The tenderizing powder yielded the most tender results with a small amount of prep.

The general rule is 1 teaspoon baking soda per pound of meat when using it as a tenderizer. For individual tender steaks, like a rib-eye, stick to a marinade or a commercial meat tenderizer. Or season simply with a generous amount of salt and some black pepper.